


better off

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [111]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Instability, Vent writing that got out of hand, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Another night, another nightmare, another few hours.
Relationships: Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Series: DS Extras [111]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Kudos: 19





	better off

These nightmares, these aching dreams...they were getting just so _tiring_.

Maxwell quelled his shuddering breaths as best as he could, inhaling the stuffy warmed tent air with deep rasps, gloved taloned hands curled tightly into the bedding. Thick beefalo furs, he vaguely, dizzily knew, stinking of body odor and wilderness and, unfortunately, the deeper scent of the nightmare oils that permeated from his very presence.

Higgsbury had complained about it, only a few days ago; he wanted to get new bedding, try to do away with the thick cloying smell that had seeped into the soft frayed furs.

The former Nightmare King had some choice things to say to that, oh yes, he could say a great many and a great few, he knew _exactly_ how to get rid of the stench of nightmare fuel oils once and for all, but-

-Wilson hadn't exactly asked him about his thoughts on the matter, and as such Maxwell did not offer his thoughts on the issue. As if he ever got bothered by the smell anyway.

The heavy bedding usually helped, the animals they came from thick monstrous beasts, weight to their every step, and sometimes their heavy hides seemed to help, just the _slightest_ bit, just enough to ease the vague weights in his chest, but right now Maxwell curled his hands into the blankets, near gasping for stabilizing air, and all he could focus upon was just how much he _hated_ the blasted things and the blasted animals they were made from.

It was more than that, this _hate_ pooling like a bitter poison, infesting everything, anything, all he knew and has known, but it was just so much more simple to focus on what he had in his hands than allow himself to spiral ever further down that path.

Such as the tent, all too warm, all too hot, solidifying the thick airs of his lingering nightmare, dream, and it felt solid and fluid and all too _real_ for him, right here, right now. The air stank of his dream, of the thing that had invaded his half attempt at rest, how it had circled loose about his throat with soothing coos of nasty promises before tightening into a binding shadow noose, strangling the air from his lungs, and Maxwell's hands spasmed, clawed a hold to the blankets before scraping over the furs, caught in the crossfire of wanting to hold on tighter or curl them around himself and try to find some vague semblance of false balance.

Maxwell _hated_ his dreams, his nightmares, and they ate through him with horrid nagging nipping tears, chewing right through his hollow empty chest, little worm tunnels burrowed throughout the fleshy excuse he had of a pathetic heart, and-

-it was getting so much _harder_ , letting himself sleep in here. The dreams and nightmares just won't ease up their grip, and some foul trembling thing inside him both feared and dreadfully hoped they never would.

Unfortunate, that his gasping wheezes, trying to calm himself, trying to find steady ground even as the pathetic excuse of a heart in his chest began to ache, even as the shaking suddenly increased in jerking, shuddering waves, that it was all just too much of a mess to be enough to wake the tents other occupant.

Maxwell squeezed shut his eyes, hands clawed almost too tightly into the thick bedding, as he felt the dipping shift of weight as Wilson awoke. He didn't have to look at the man to know what he was doing; the quiet of waking, the softer shifting of wiping at his face, his mouth, the man drooled quite a lot sometimes, could soak his pillow pretty quickly if he didn't fall asleep at a particular angle-

-the quiet cracks and pops of stretching limbs, the near silent sound of bone claws passing through tangled up greasy hair, before there was the telltale low huff of a sigh as Wilson recognized Maxwell's posture.

"...Did you have another nightmare, Max?"

The tone, exhaustion and half sleepy dizziness, still mostly unaware, tainted by faint apathetic frustration, the usual quiet surrender, too damn familiar to hear by now, and it was enough to make Maxwell grit his jaw tight, squeeze his eyes shut and bow his head.

Enough to unhook his hands from the bedding and wrap it around himself, enough to feel that disgusted sense of horrid hopelessness, helpless against what his own subconscious mind gave him as an answering to his sins, and the next wheezed gasp from him was more of a stuttered hiss, choked up as he fought the threatening tide within his own chest.

The former Nightmare King curled in on himself, just for a few steadying moments more, and if he flinched at Wilsons soft touch to his back neither of them brought attention to it.

"Hey, it's..it's alright." Spoken slow, sluggish, only a hint of awareness blinking through now, peeking from the exhaustion, and Maxwell sucked in sharp gasps of air, forcing himself to do so slowly, forcing the strangled choking in his chest to just _shut up for one goddamn second-!_

"Just a dream, Max, just a dream." Maxwell curled himself tighter together as that hand on his back moved, a slow, sluggish curve, then making a half circle in the pattern, before he went stiff as Wilson scooted closer and leaned up against him. "Go back to bed, you'll feel better in the morning, okay?"

A tint of dizziness at the end there, just enough, just familiar enough, and Maxwell found himself latching onto that, just that, just for one measly little moment-

And he hissed out a strained wheeze of air, straightened himself up, forcing his eyes into a brief flicker open, dizzy with darkness and dream aura, fears and terrors and all that still was a foul oily goop in his chest, permeating his chest, _maybe that was all he was made of now._ He could feel the brief startle by his side as he moved, as he forcefully shoved it all down and to the side, swallowing fitfully, his throat was horridly dry and he knew if he spoke he'd be hoarse and ragged, and even as he tried to wrangle himself together still his arms shook, still the sickness twisted and turned inside himself, unmoving, rotting into a foul sludge that would never be cleaned away, nothing could ever clear it away again, never again-

 _Only that one time pass for William_ , Maxwell dizzily thought to himself, _look how that turned out_ , and it was enough humor to expel the last trembling gasps from his chest, enough to wrangle back in his fading pathetic strengths, pull himself into a vaguely together sort of shape, just well enough.

Wilson leaned back a bit, the sleepy shock almost visible in the muggy darkness of their shared tent, but Maxwell only offered a few half hearted words as he untangled himself from the bedding. The sounds caught bad in his throat, trembled even as he forced them out, hoarse and raw and corrupted with trembling fears and aches and pains, but force them out he did.

"I'm fine." It came out more muttered than confident, throttled under a trembling breath, a sharp wheeze as something tightened in his chest, as some faint aftershock from the dream, the nightmare came flaring back up, almost enough to drag him back, almost enough to crumble his will, but Maxwell snarled his face and forced it back down viciously. "...don't worry yourself, Higgsbury."

"Max…"

A sluggish glance only showed him Wilson's dark silhouette, not enough light in their tent to give him an outline view, only the faint flickers of the still lit fire pit outside, dying down by now with the darker orange flames it threw up against the tent's fabric. Maxwell paused for only a moment, cracked a wobbly crooked grin, some half hearted attempt that couldn't at all compare to the full persuasive smiles he had once been able to pull off with ease, and his voice was rubbed raw as he whistled in a breath, gloved hand already waving about as he reached for the tent entrance.

"Go back to bed, love." That hurt a bit, wheezing that out, tugging something painfully raw within his chest and near splitting it in two, holding on by aching heartstrings, but that didn't stop Maxwell, never really would. "Just stepping out for a breather, won't be long."

Even with the cracked warble to his voice he could still pull it off well enough, still slip on that facade, the charlatan mask, half porcelain, all flimsy plaster, and Maxwell turned his head away, squinted his eyes at the slight sliver of firelight that slipped from the tent flap door as his fingers gently started to brush it open-

Before there was a hand on his wrist instead, warm and solid, the tougher firmness of bone claws clasped firm to his skin.

"...wait." Wilson's voice wasn't as threaded with sleep as he had initially thought, and Maxwell did wait, shock halting him, twisting the nauseous slimy knots inside himself terribly, just enough to make him shudder a horrid, near full body tremor, pain and disgust alike in the half nightmare half dreams memory, a wavering hissing half whimper out of him as the old man trembled fitfully.

That made Wilson pull his claws away, sudden and quick, and Maxwell couldn't quite get his gaze to look back up, he didn't want to risk seeing the other man's face, the curdled worry and concern, scorn and exhaustion that most definitely laced over and deep into his skin and muscles, his very _being_ -

"I...I don't want you to go…" Said quietly, very, very quietly.

Maxwell stared into the darkness of the tent for a long few moments, minutes.

Something hidden under the words, something thick and heavy and under deep, a clear know how, and Maxwell swallowed fitfully, dry and tired and dragged down, born down by the anchor weights of everything and anything, and he…

Slowly settled back, still just by the tent entrance, and he lowered his head as he listened to that slight hint of sound as Wilson sucked in a breath, a visible, audible attempt to steady himself.

It was courtesy, and that inflamed aching pain of a debt unpaid, a debt never paid, a debt so deeply ingrained into him it was going nowhere, that kept him still. The hauntings still drifted like a sickly cloud, a miasma that had filled his lungs and filled his body and eaten away at his poor excuse of a heart, and the former Nightmare King wavered on it, on wanting to flee, on wanting to escape into the chilly night air and almost dead fire and encroaching, teasing, so very temptingly deep and _safe_ darkness-

It nagged at him, the bones of his hands, his twitching gloved, taloned fingers, his tingling wrists, a faint… _thing_ , a faint _want_ , and already he had clasped his hands over his pulse points, the glove and sleeve fabrics helping hide his evidence, his choices, his decisions, how it has all fallen apart and always will fall apart and Maxwell _wanted, needed_ to get out of this tent and far, far away from his partner-

_-and tear some goddamn sense into himself via the only means he knew how-_

A whistled breath of an exhale shuddered out of him, strained and tight and trembling, temptation, understanding of what he _needed_ to do, right now, dream and nightmare fog eating him alive in the shuddering flashes of memory and horror and wonderfully wanted dreamscapes mimicking what had once been real, and Maxwell…

Flinched hard, when hands suddenly encircled him, slow and hesitant and careful, firm.

He trembled, when Wilson pressed the side of his face to his chest, when those hands, those arms tightened about him, a low, familiar hum rising from the man.

"It...it gets cold, without you." Wilson whispered, quietly, almost absentmindedly, but his grip was too firm to be a sleepily made decision. "And empty, and silent."

Maxwell shuddered in a wheezed breath, bordering a whimper, and when Wilson lightly started to guide him back to the bedding, only a faint few tugs, slow and soft and careful, so very careful, there was no resistence.

"And I…I don't want that, Maxwell. Not for me, and...and not for you."

There were other things there, hidden within his words, other meanings that he just couldn't quite pick up on, but Maxwell was currently swallowing painfully against the rising threat of a flood, the surging foul twists and turns of disgusting sickness, the tide of memory and dream nightmare lapping at his mind even as he went limp in his partners grip.

Wilson pulled him back, his tired movements a bit wide and heavy handed but none of it made without deep thought, and Maxwell could do nothing but allow himself to be tugged back underneath the blankets, allow those hands and dull bone claws to wrap him up and pull close.

"Stay with me, Max, just for tonight." Said softly, a hint muffled against his chest, and Maxwell closed his eyes, jaw aching from how hard he was gritting it, hands curled into fists, limp at his partners touch but so very much forcing himself to be unwilling, unwilling, he can't just _allow_ this excuse, he can't just _use_ Wilson like this-

"...For a few hours, at least?" The questioning tone drew him back, soft and drawn quiet, almost saddened even if Maxwell was feeling pitiful about it, but he wasn't, he wasn't, just sick with his own foul weight of life and empty worth and nightmares that inhabited his body now and forever and-

-and Wilson just wanted a few hours, that's all. 

...Maxwell shuddered in a breath, then another, and another, and it hurt how hard he was gritting his snaggletoothed jaw together, it _hurt_ how the air sucked into him and wheezed out in a foul warmed humid hiss, it _hurt_ , the cautious strength of how he could feel Wilson holding him, pulling him in close, underneath stinking fur bedding that needed to be replaced because his own foul presence has corrupted it into a horror of a reminder, of himself and who he was and all he'd ever be-

"...please, Maxwell?"

Maxwell trembled, feeling his partner's head pressed against his worn suit, against his chest, ear right to him and hearing him out, hearing all of him out as his sluggish foul excuse for a heart throbbed on, a pathetic beat of a pathetic story, of suffering and sadism and fear and panic and violence and pain, and…

All the former Nightmare King could do was shakily raise his own hands, gloved talons snagging across fabric, and with a shuddering choked sound that might have been a swallowed whimper Maxwell wrapped his arms about his partner and buried his face into his greasy dark tangles of hair.

If Maxwell sobbed, half wheezed things as his chest ached and his entire being rebelled at him, nipping and nagging and _biting_ , dampness that soaked into Wilson's thick hair, then neither man would be the one to ever admit it.


End file.
